(Originally found in the estate sale of Ron Czepack, nephew of the late Gary Czepack)
July 16, 1964
Dose: 1 mg
Time: 8 A.M.
Manual
It is with some hesitation that I embark on this adventure. My colleagues have all been remarkably patient around my endeavors- providing funds wherever possible, and allowing me to set up my own adjunct in the wing of the main laboratory. To them, I dedicate this- what will undoubtedly become one of the most important forays into contemporary psychiatric research.
The announcement of Additive I-7 is a step forward in the rehabilitative fields, and will result in seismic upheavals of our current understanding. Additive I-7, as many have reported, is a substance found in a rare, specially bred variant of the fungi Amanita Muscaria. Developed by our associates in Switzerland, it is created by leaving the fungi in substrate underneath powerful radiative lights for a period of 1.5 weeks, at which point the substance begins to form near the outer rim of the gills.
Additive I-7 is, for all intents and purposes, a miracle cure in combating addictive behavior. Initial tests on patients in the Santa Monica rehabilitation facility Synanon two years ago display remarkable results: 78% of test subjects report a decrease in issues with dependency, a sensation of overwhelming calm, and a reintegration into general society.
It is with these studies in mind that I have become fascinated with Additive I-7. The press junkets have deemed it too drastic, with inadequate research. Today, I hope to supply that research, and document my journey with the additive. I have faith that my colleagues will supply their best judgment in this avenue, and would not proceed if I did not have the utmost confidence in my reputation as an adherent to ethical standards and best practices.
Dose: 2 mg
Time: 6 P.M.
Manual
Additive 1-7 is, as with all psychotropic substances, extremely delicate. It requires precision and finesse to administer, something I’m sure I’ll learn the further I go. I believe 3 milligrams will suffice for today, at least for the purposes of acclimating my system.
Both doses administered today have resulted in slight alterations of my mental state. I walked downstairs at approximately 3:45 P.M. and the room was noticeably green- my lamps are I suppose somewhat towards that color- they don’t reproduce natural light by any means- however I’m inclined to believe that the color shift was a direct result of Additive 1-7. After this, I felt somewhat dizzy and took up a position on the couch in my living room.
The distortion of time appears to be a secondary effect- my daughter walked into the room and said, “Daddy, dinner is on.” Sure enough, it was already 6 P.M. and my wife was making casserole in the kitchen, and to my mind it must have only been around 4 P.M., with 15 or so minutes having passed. Therefore, one can expect 15 minutes in this state to equate to approximately 1.5-3 hours under the influence of Additive 1-7.
Prior to dinner, I administered my secondary dose, this time with twice the potency. I want to ease myself in, like a swimmer in a cold pool, however at the same time I feel it necessary to experience Additive 1-7 while going through the motions of everyday life. If the substance is to be used as a treatment for recovering addicts, after all- and presumably thereafter adopted by the pharmaceutical industry- it must be proven to blend well with normal activity and routine behavior.
My daughter, wife and son did not appear to notice any difference in my behavior. For the purposes of this regimen, I have informed them that I am ingesting a substance on a regular basis for the purposes of scientific discovery, however I have left them in the dark regarding the origin of the substance, the hypothesized effects, and the purpose of the experiment.
I am going to sleep in one hour, it is currently 9:53 P.M. and I have some chores to wrap up. There isn’t a particular decrease in my stamina, I feel healthy and well-adjusted and believe that it’s important to get good sleep in this condition. As I mentioned, however, certain objects appear slightly off. I can’t describe it in more detail than that- at least not at the moment.
July 17, 1964
Dose: 4 mg
Time: 10 A.M.
Intravenous
I woke this morning with a start- something had disturbed me in my sleep, but for the life of me I can’t recall what. It was one of those early morning visions during the REM phase which seems extremely vivid, yet which passes from memory and consciousness shortly thereafter. Whether it was related to my consumption of Additive 1-7, I cannot state.
I ate a hearty breakfast of eggs and sausage and toast, and then sat down to watch T.V. with my son for around an hour, from around 8 A.M. to 9 A.M.- no time distortion effects during this period, yesterday’s doses seem to have worn off for the most part. I used the devices supplied by the clinic to monitor my heart rate and breathing patterns, which I am recording meticulously in my journal, along with charts constructed according to the specification you provided.
I then used the syringe you loaned me to inject myself with a dose which I believed would last me throughout the day. There is no noticeable difference between manual consumption and intravenous application- the Additive even seems to dull the pain, and the injection site did not show any negative reaction. I believe, however, that allergic reactions in certain patients are possible, given the chemical breakdown provided to me by the lab.
Around noon I was feeling good. Warm all over, and slightly dizzy, yet energetic. I walked out on the porch and then around our neighborhood some, said hello to the neighbors, who did not seem to pay me any mind, and mostly went about their yard work. We moved in a year back and don’t seem to be making any real connections with the community- we’re not invited to the Rotary Club, the Lodge, the Homeowner’s Association, etc.
Regardless, I maintain a decent attitude generally, I consider myself to be of an optimistic disposition, and Additive 1-7 has not affected that- at all times, I am thinking happy thoughts. Happy, happy, happy.
I returned home around noon- by this time, my wife had left for her job at the dry cleaner’s and I had some paperwork to fill out regarding various supplements which have found their way into our department. I decided to use this time to test whether or not the high dose this morning would make me more productive.
Sure enough, I was off to the races- I had the forms done in around 15 minutes (which I verified with my watch to ensure accuracy of temporal perception) and soon I was feeling so giddy in the process of writing that I decided to take my pen and jot down several more notes, until nearly a quarter of my notebook was filled in. Some of these notes appear incoherent now- yet when I wrote them, I felt as if I was doing very important work. Perhaps with more of the Additive they’ll start to make some kind of sense.
My wife then returned home briefly to check up on how I was doing, and gave me my usual lunch, a tuna fish sandwich and a bag of potato chips. I reached out to thank her, and felt her arm- until this point, I had failed to pick up on any tactile illusion, yet her arm was somehow grainy, if that makes sense. Coarse and rough, the texture of sand. I cannot explain this.
After lunch, I was feeling lightheaded and dizzy, and went downstairs once again to sit down on the couch, this time watching the clock on the wall. Each second appeared to speed up incrementally. By now, I was well under the effect of the Additive.
This illusion with the clock was accompanied by an intense throbbing in my head- like machinery, like industrial pipes clanging repeatedly, as if they were struck by some heavy object. My brain felt sensations of intense pressure and I had to clutch the armrests just to stay upright. It was at this point that my eyes slid backward into my head, completely obscuring the iris and pupil, and I was witness to visual ephemera.
I cannot exactly describe these illusions now that they’ve left- but they resembled smoke, smoke and the pungent odor of something burning, in fact I worried that maybe the house was burning around me, yet I was aware that it was not, and at the same time I was so immobilized that I could not have escaped if it were. There was an orange glow, a heated orange glow which enveloped me, and the smoke made trails around itself and then was gone-
The next thing I knew, it was time for dinner yet again.
And so it appears that Additive 1-7 may not be suitable for use in patients, at least not until more tests are run on willing participants and the exact nature of these elaborate, feverish sensations are determined on a neurological level.
July 18, 1964
Dose: 1 mg
Time: 11 A.M.
Manual
I am determined to complete the test, however today I went back to 1 milligram because this substance- and its potency- must be experienced to be believed.
I am still feeling something. Exactly what, I don’t know. I have re-examined the notes I took yesterday and they remain largely incoherent- if only my mind could remember what I was thinking, in that exact moment- if such a bout of creative fervor takes hold of me again, I will have this journal on hand. I can only hope the record I keep will make sense afterward.
There is now smoke around me at all times- it lingers in the room even when others are present- I asked my wife about it and she seemed oblivious to it. It has an amber quality and makes breathing difficult, yet I remain fully awake and my lungs are operating adequately according to the respiration monitor. I remain conscious and active, however my balance is, as I have mentioned many times, impaired.
This may appear contradictory, and I assume that it is, however under the influence of Additive 1-7 it is difficult to gauge the internal processes of my own body, which is a difficult prospect because oftentimes one considers their own body to be the only mechanism they can trust and place an implicit faith in. If the body separates itself from the mind, develops a will of its own, separate from the mind... of course, such a thing is merely speculation and shouldn’t be dwelled upon any further here.
My wife is beginning to suspect. I think they’re all beginning to suspect. Off-handed remarks, looks from my daughter as if I were crazy. Which I suppose I am, it’s difficult to think straight when there’s a cloud of particulate swirling around you. When I inhale it, it makes me want to do something, to write a memoir or go for a run around the lake.
I’ll tell them soon. But not now. Not while these effects are still present.
Dose: 5 mg
Time: 8 P.M.
Intravenous
More of the stuff, right to the system, shock to the system will get it going, and then I can determine what’s really going on here. Shot it into my left forearm without so much as a wince, doesn’t even cause the slightest twinge of pain anymore, applied isopropyl alcohol to the injection site and dabbed it with cotton, there isn’t even a puncture wound as far as I can tell. But the effects- the visual clutter that now inhabits my field of view at all times- it makes everything feel new, it makes life feel novel.
I’m catching the smoke, more smoke than ever, as if the house were caught in the middle of an inferno, that variety which springs up on the prairie and lays waste to thousands of homes in a single night after ignition by a lightning bolt.
There’s light, too, a deep orange bordering on red, the color of fire, although not your typical garden variety fire, but rather a variant, akin to blue or green fire in certain chemical reactions. An unnatural color for fire to take on, as if it were hungry, hungry for every last little bit of oxygen. It’s difficult to carry on conversations with my wife, as the light dulls her features and makes her words sound distant and ineffectual.
I am in bed now, writing this from a vertical position. My wife is next to me but doesn’t suspect a thing, and I am only vaguely aware of her presence. Around an hour ago- I can’t be sure, really, because time is now as difficult as ever to accurately grasp- I was seized by a kind of overwhelming terror at how isolated I felt, as if my family were gone and I was in the house alone, and I heard nothing except the burning, the awful noise of flames licking at the walls and my eyes grew wide and I felt like screaming, however no sound came out.
July 19, 1964
Dose: 10 mg
Time: 9 A.M.
Intravenous
Woke up early, earlier than I’d have liked to, but didn’t tell them. Don’t need an alarm clock with this, because you’re jolted from an unpleasant slumber with your heart nearly stopping and your gasp catching in your throat, and you spring forward like some possessed jack-in-the-box and you can’t go back to sleep. That was at 5:00, going by our alarm clock. I didn’t even notice four hours pass, my mind was racing all the while.
That was when I had the horrible idea- yes, I thought. Maximum dose recommended by the clinic. The most possible, just to see what happens, to know where the smoke is coming from, because it doesn’t go away, not as long as I keep taking this it won’t leave me. I may as well know its source, I thought. And so I loaded up the syringe and went for it. Completely unscientific behavior, but then I’m hardly concerned with the scientific method anymore.
I stepped outside and the quiet lawns of my neighborhood, adorned in drowsy songbird ambience, gave way to those sickening clouds, those billowing wisps of carcinogenic detritus, and the world was blocked out for several minutes.
I sat on the porch and watched the dials of my wristwatch as they careened forward at a breakneck pace like two racecars, the hour hand going nearly as fast as the minute hand with no particular relationship between the two. Time itself in this state is largely irrelevant, because the amount of time which passes quickly is not actually the amount of time which passes in reality, and therefore any timekeeping mechanism is unreliable.
I stood up, got to my feet.
Where the houses had been, there was now only a large desert plateau, cracked and burned from the heat of the sun overhead. My own home was still present, behind me, but as I glanced over my shoulder I noticed that it was aged and yellowed and covered in patches of mold, as if it had sat out here with no maintenance or upkeep for a century of neglect.
I stepped off the porch and onto that plateau, and noticed that as I proceeded, the smoke cleared, at long last it gave way to an unbearable heat which I can only assume were the deadly rays of the sun, permeating the thin atmosphere with virtually no limits. Because the atmosphere was thin, although I could breathe it was so thin, so hostile, and I felt as if I would choke out and collapse onto the sand, yet my feet carried me forward, and I went with them.
Little white flakes began descending around me, like ash, and the sky, which was a deep red akin to that of an open sore, was full of the little things, which caught on my jacket and burrowed into my hair. I staggered onward, vaguely aware of them, but paying them little mind, assuming them to be mere byproducts of the smoke.
However, I then raised my arm, and I saw that it was deceased and leprous, the veins pronounced beyond description and the skin the color of gangrene. My fingers, which had only moments earlier been present, were now little nubs, eaten away by the irradiated sand, worn down from years in this hell-world
I screamed, but no sound came out
July 20, 1964
Dose: 9 mg
Time: 1 A.M.
Intravenous
It’s not every night you can sit on your front porch and watch atomic detonations take place on the horizon, but tonight is one of those nights
Neon flumes, soaring up, so pretty, like fireworks beyond the pale
You come to recognize the meaninglessness of it all, if this is what we’re reduced to in the end, and the meaninglessness of writing this, because it’ll all go up into nothing once what I’ve witnessed comes to pass and the world as we knew it ceases to function in the final hours
The Compound. Don’t go in the Compound